Believing in Tomorrow: A Christian Romance (The Callaghans & McFaddens Book 4)

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  Sammi got into her car and let out a long breath, trying to calm the nerves that had seemed to be perpetually present since the result of that first pregnancy test. She hadn’t figured out if her near constant nausea was from anxiety or from being pregnant.

  But now that she was at the end of the first trimester, and the pregnancy had been confirmed by the doctor, she didn’t know what her next step should be. She couldn’t hide it forever. As she sat there, a snippet of what she thought was a verse came to her mind. Be sure your sin will find you out. And it definitely had.

  Levi toweled off his hair before heading into his bedroom to pull on some clothes. Every muscle in his body hurt, but at least he was clean. The latest job had turned into a bigger task than he’d thought it would be when he’d agreed to it. Instead of hiring more workers to help out, Levi had stepped in and also pulled a couple of guys from the other job sites.

  The last three months had been stressful on so many levels. A couple of days after that night at the hotel, he’d decided to go to the police about what Davy and Caren had done. He’d realized that it wasn’t just about Davy stealing from him. Davy had stolen from Levi’s employees. These were people who were relying on Levi to pay them for the work they did so that they could pay their mortgages, rent, and buy groceries. For their sake, Levi had had to try and get the money back.

  Davy and Caren had managed to spend some of it before the police had tracked them down. Fortunately, Levi had had payment come in from a large job which, combined with small his personal savings, had been enough to cover the one payroll. Davy had obviously planned on Levi not trying to track him down because he hadn’t covered his tracks well at all. It hadn’t taken the cops much time to find Davy, Caren and what was left of the stolen money. Once it was back in his account, he’d been able to relax knowing that at least his payroll and his mom’s bills would still be covered even if it meant tightening the purse strings in other areas.

  That had been a relief, but then there had been the stress of knowing that he’d been responsible for his brother’s arrest. His mother still hadn’t forgiven him for that. She didn’t seem to realize that the theft had been considerable, so it really wasn’t something to brush aside. And frankly, Levi didn’t want to, regardless of how his mother felt.

  He’d done all he could for Davy. He’d given him a job and a place to stay. And how had the guy repaid Levi? Stolen his fiancée and his money. As far as Levi was concerned, Davy could find his own way through life from this point on, whether it was in prison or out of it. It was hard to think about losing connection with a family member when he had so few, but no family was better than family who stole from him.

  As he walked down the carpeted hallway to the open area that included the kitchen, living and dining room at the front of his house, Levi ran a hand through his still damp hair. Now that he was clean, his next concern was eating. He’d only had time to scarf down a burger at lunch after one of the guys had picked up an order for them at the closest fast food restaurant. But now he needed something more. His stomach felt like it was going to shrivel up into nothing if he didn’t get some food into it.

  Thankfully, he’d done a large grocery shop on the weekend, so he had food on hand to cook. It would have been nice to have something already made, but since he didn’t, he pulled out a pack of chicken breasts and some vegetables. He put on some rice and was in the midst of stirring the chicken and vegetables together when the doorbell rang.

  Levi reached out to turn down the stir-fry before heading to answer it, already preparing his speech to send away whatever door to door salesman was there. It seemed they always timed their visits right at supper, and while Levi usually tried to give them some of his time, tonight he was far too hungry for that.

  He jerked the door open and froze. A fuzzy memory came sharply into focus as his gaze landed on the dark-haired woman standing on his porch. Though he recognized her, he couldn’t recall too much from the night they’d spent together. Alcohol had robbed him of many of the details of what had happened. The clearest memory had been of waking in a strange bed with a pounding headache, alone and surrounded by the scent of a woman’s perfume.

  “Samantha,” Levi said, the name flowing without hesitation. “How did you find me?”

  He wanted to ask why she was there, but he figured just one question at a time would be best. As she stood there on his porch, dressed in a pair of fitted jeans and a soft pink T-shirt with her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, Levi had another memory of her. Of her smile at something he’d said. Of her laugh as she’d shared a story from her life.

  Her brows drew together for a moment. “I had a picture of your driver’s license. It had your address.”

  “Oh, of course.” At her words, he remembered her asking for his license once they’d gotten to the room. “Do you want to come in?”

  She hesitated for a moment before nodding. Levi stepped back, and as she walked past him into his home, he got a whiff of the perfume he remembered waking up to.

  “Have a seat.” Levi gestured in his living room. “I’ll be right there.”

  Thanks to the open floor plan in that part of the house, he could still see Samantha where she sat on his couch. He gave the food a quick stir before covering it. A million thoughts were going through his mind as he walked back to the living room and sat down on the loveseat across from her.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked when Samantha didn’t immediately say anything.

  She looked up at him then, her expression serious. He hadn’t dwelled much on the night that had transpired almost three months ago. Courtesy of the over-indulgence in alcohol, it was a blurry mess of memories, but seeing her now, more of that night came into focus. Right then, however, it was the wariness in her dark gaze that held his attention.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The words hit Levi like a sledgehammer. Pregnant?

  There had been a time when he’d imagined having children—of becoming a father—but that had all gone away when his fiancée had chosen his brother over him. Caren had wanted to wait a few years before having children and that had been fine with him. She hadn’t exactly been the maternal type.

  “It’s mine?” Levi had to ask. For all he knew, she could have slept with her ex-boyfriend in the days or weeks leading up to that night. Or even slept with someone after their time together in the hotel.

  Samantha didn’t appear to take offense at his question. Thankfully. “Yes. I hadn’t…been with anyone for a couple of months before that.” Her gaze dropped to her hands. “There was no one else but you.”

  Levi sank back into the couch. A baby. My baby. The idea should have scared him, but surprisingly, it didn’t. Not really. Not any more than it would have if he’d been in a stable relationship and his girlfriend had gotten pregnant.

  “What do you need from me?” Levi asked.

  Samantha shrugged. “I don’t know, to be honest. I just…I had to let you know. I couldn’t put the baby up for adoption without you agreeing.”

  “Wait. What?” Levi’s mind spun at the suggestion, and he was surprised at how wrong that idea felt to him. “Adoption? You want to give the baby away?”

  “Yes.” Her head lifted, and her gaze met his. “No? Maybe?” She looked away from him and let out a quick breath. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.”

  Levi knew what she was feeling because he didn’t know what to do either. “Do you have to make a decision now?”

  Samantha shook her head. “I was just looking at options.”

  Silence fell between them, and Levi was afraid that Samantha was going to leave right away. He found that he wasn’t ready for that yet.

  “Have you had supper?”

  “What?”

  “Supper. Have you eaten?”

  “No, not yet. I haven’t had much appetite lately.”

  “How have you been feeling?” The urge to know how she was physically dealing with havin
g their baby growing within her took Levi by surprise.

  “Tired. Not really hungry most the time.”

  “I haven’t eaten yet,” Levi said as he got to his feet. “In fact, I was just making dinner. Would you like to join me?”

  Samantha hesitated before she nodded. “If you have enough.”

  “Sure. It’s nothing fancy. Just chicken stir-fry and rice, but you’re welcome to share it.”

  Samantha stood up and followed Levi to the kitchen. He got plates and cups from the cupboard, and she took them to the small table in the dining room. Levi watched her out of the corner of his eye as he emptied the food into a serving bowl. It had been awhile since he’d had someone eat with him at the table.

  He carried the stir-fry and rice to where Samantha waited, hovering beside one of the chairs. She looked like she was rethinking her decision to stay.

  “What would you like to drink?” Levi asked as he set the food down. “I’ve got water. Milk. Soda. Juice.”

  “Just water. Thank you.”

  After getting water from the refrigerator, Levi returned to the table. He put the glasses down at each place setting then pulled one of the chairs out for her. Samantha glanced at him then sat down.

  Levi moved the dishes closer to her. “Sorry. It’s not anything fancy.”

  “It smells delicious, actually,” Samantha said, giving him a small smile—nothing like the smiles he remembered from the bar.

  He was glad to see her dish up a good serving of the rice and the stir-fry. “I have a few meals I can manage that don’t taste too bad. This one. Spaghetti. Tacos. And of course, anything on the barbecue.”

  “I still live at home, and my mom does most the cooking, so to be honest, I’m not a really great cook. I suppose I should be learning more.”

  “Does your family know about the baby?”

  Samantha used her fork to move the food around on her plate. “Not yet. I’m not sure how to tell them.” She set her fork down and leaned back in her chair. Reaching out, she ran her fingers on the edge of her glass. “We’re a Christian family, and I was always taught to save myself for marriage. The sex was wrong because we weren’t married.”

  “Really?” Levi’s brows rose at that revelation. He didn’t remember in detail their time together, but he felt bad if it was causing trouble for Samantha. She wasn’t just some one-night-stand showing up to make sure he knew so he could pay child support. There was something else entirely going on with her. “How upset will they be?”

  “Probably pretty upset. And not just because I’m pregnant, but because it was the result of…well, a one-night stand. I had already been with my ex-boyfriend—and, yes, I know, that was wrong, too—but he’d told me we were going to get married, which was why I agreed to sleep with him. So people are going to think it’s his child, but it’s not. There’s no doubt about that.”

  Levi wasn’t sure how to take all of this, but he understood now why she was considering adoption. It wasn’t as if they would be getting married just because she was pregnant. Maybe if they’d already been dating, it would have been an option, but in their case, it definitely wasn’t.

  “Do you want me to be there when you tell your family?” Levi offered.

  He watched as she hunched over, her shoulders curling forward. It was like she was shrinking into someone smaller right before his eyes. She wasn’t a small woman. Her height was about average, and she had a curvy figure, but right then, looking at her, Levi could only think how fragile and delicate she appeared. It tugged on his protective instincts, even though it wasn’t his place to protect her.

  However, she was going to be the mother of his child, and he could see that this was changing her life more than it was changing his. For the remainder of the pregnancy, it was she who would have to bear the physical brunt of impending parenthood. And if she did decide to keep the baby once it was born, he couldn’t be there to help with feedings or diaper changes in any significant way. The baby would be her responsibility to a large degree.

  So, for now, he wanted to do what he could to help out. His need to be responsible drove him to make the offer to be with her when she told her family. He had no idea how that would work for her, but he had to at least make the offer. Never let it be said that he wasn’t willing to step up and take responsibility for his role in what had happened. Their night together should never have taken place because they’d both been too drunk to make a rational decision. And now the consequences were coming home to roost.

  Levi supposed that he could have balked at the responsibility, insisting on waiting for the results of a DNA test before stepping up, but his gut said that Samantha wasn’t trying to pull one over on him.

  “Thank you for offering,” Samantha said. “But I think it’s probably best that I deal with it on my own. I think it would just…complicate things to have you there.”

  There was a part of Levi that was relieved that had turned him down. He wasn’t quite sure what the chances of him walking out uninjured would be given what she’d told him about her family. A memory of her mentioning having seven brothers floated through his mind. One to seven—eight, if he counted her father—were definitely not odds in his favor. However, he would have gone if she’d taken him up on his offer.

  Suddenly, Samantha pushed her plate toward the center of the table and got to her feet. “I think I’d better go.”

  Levi also stood and watched as she wrapped her arms across her waist. “Let me give you my phone number so you can call me if you need anything.”

  Nodding, Samantha pulled her phone out, and after unlocking it, she handed it to him. It took him a minute to get to her contact screen since she hadn’t opened it before she gave it to him. Once there, he tapped in his name and his number.

  As he handed the phone back to her, he said, “Seriously, if you need anything—even just to talk—give me a call.”

  “Thanks,” she said, giving him a slight smile.

  It reminded him of the first few smiles she’d given him when they’d started to talk at the bar. It was weird how the memories that had seemed so fuzzy for the past three months were slowly coming into focus the more he thought about them. When he’d woken up alone in that hotel room, he’d just chalked it up to a bad decision and had put it out of his mind. Every once in a while, he had wondered how the beautiful woman with chocolate brown eyes and an air of sadness was doing. She had seemed to be a lot more broken up over the end of her relationship than he had been over his.

  When they reached the front door, Levi opened it for her and watched as she headed across his small porch to the steps that led to the walk that went from his house to the sidewalk. Levi stepped out on the porch, his gaze on Samantha as she walked to a car parked on the street behind his truck. She got behind the wheel, but it was a few minutes before she drove away.

  Once back in his house, Levi took his seat at the table and ate, his mind on everything. Already he was playing through scenarios in his head. What would his life look like in the future? If she kept the baby, how involved would she want him to be in their child’s life? And what if she didn’t? How would he feel about that? Regardless of his level of involvement, he knew that he would be paying child support. He just hoped that she would let him play a role in their child’s life.

  But what if she really did want to give the baby up for adoption?

  He was much nicer than he had to be, all things considered. Not every man would have been as accepting of their drunken one-night-stand showing up on their doorstep announcing she was pregnant. He could have told me to keep walking, but he listened to what I had to say and even offered me a meal. Up next is telling Mom and Dad. Maybe that will help my anxiety. Or not. They’d probably be more accepting if I told them it was Jayden’s since we’d been seriously dating. Not only do I have to tell them I’m pregnant, but I also have to tell them that I didn’t know the father before I slept with him. Okay, that’s not completely true. We did talk for a few hours before doing t
he deed, but still, he was pretty much a total stranger. How many more mistakes can I make? Will keeping this baby be another one? Or will giving it away be the mistake that I regret for the rest of my life?

  Sammi dropped her head onto the open journal she was writing in as she lay on her stomach on the bed, the pen still clasped tightly in her hand. Over the past three months, every journal entry had been some variation of the one she’d just written. Not a single day had passed since that first pregnancy test that her angst over everything hadn’t overshadowed everything else in her life.

  Thankfully, her family had accepted that her less than happy mood most days was due to the breakup with Jayden. However, the truth was that the baby situation had totally eclipsed her thoughts and feelings about the breakup. Well, except for the day a couple of weeks ago when she’d logged onto her sorely neglected Facebook account to see that her friends from church were congratulating Jayden and Autumn on their engagement. She and Jayden had been dating for almost a year, and he hadn’t even proposed formally, yet in less than three months, he had decided that Autumn really was the one for him.

  Sammi rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She’d been nervous about telling Levi, but she was anxiety-ridden at the thought of what her family was going to have to say about her news. Though she would have loved to put it off indefinitely, there was no time like the present to talk to them. She wasn’t working that night, and she knew they were both home.

  Sammi pushed to a sitting position before tossing the pen on top of the journal and sliding both beneath her pillow. As she left her room, she rubbed her damp palms on her leggings before clenching her hands. She could hear music coming from her sixteen-year-old brother’s room, and the door to her younger sister’s room was also closed. That meant that she’d have her parents’ undivided attention.

  She heard their voices coming from the kitchen and paused, making sure she wasn’t interrupting anything important. When it sounded like they were just discussing something about a meeting at church, Sammi took a deep breath, thinking for a brief moment that she should have accepted Levi’s offer to do this with her.